Regional nodes in European areas to boost innovation transfer and knowledge uptake. A social network analysis of building relationships in “Short food supply chain Knowledge and Innovation Network (SKIN)” – H2020 Project

European Commission (EC) has strong commitments in fostering sustainable growth, as proposed within the Europe 2020 program. Going through such program, it emerges that the European areas often present different features and problems to be faced. It occurs the need to piece together efforts in order to build strong infrastructures making capable the food supply chain operators to engage synergies by a system putting in contacts actors from different European areas. SKIN project is an H2020 project already approved by the EC. It focuses on the assessment of good practices in Short Food Supply Chain (SFSC). The main features of such good practices will be spread in as much as possible European areas through strong networks that will be established. SFSC is one of the relevant topics raised within the EIP-AGRI Focus Group. The Focus Group is composed by experts and experienced people that have gathered their contributes and got conclusions inspiring the project ideas. Regional nodes have been arisen as a fundamental part of SKIN project. In fact, after preliminary phases aimed to assess, collect and store data, the emerging information will be grouped and managed by entities mentioned as regional nodes. This study aims at understanding whether the innovative SKIN methodology fits into the scientific evidence of the existing literature.